It was the same story with the housekeeping staff
who cleaned, did laundry, and helped serve the plates
at mealtimes.
“I made his bed same as always while he be having
breakfast,” said one young woman, “and somebody did
lay on it and pull up the blanket between then and when
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they did the bed check, but I can’t swear it was him.
Some of our residents, they’re right bad for just laying
down on any bed that’s empty, whether it’s their own
or somebody else’s.”
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23
Tuesday Morning (continued)
% “What took you so long?” Mayleen Richards asked
when Jack Jamison finally slid in beside her in the
unmarked car they were using this morning.
“Handing in my resignation,” he said tersely.
She laughed as she turned on the windshield wipers
and shifted from park to drive, but the laughter died
after taking a second look at his face.
“Jeeze! You’re not joking, are you?”
“Serious as a gunshot to the chest,” he said, in a grim-
mer tone than she had ever heard him use.
“So where’re you going? Raleigh? Charlotte?”
“Texas first, then Iraq if I pass the physical.”
Richards was appalled. “Are you out of your gourd?”
She had seen the flyers, had even visited the web sites.
“You’re going to become a hired mercenary?”
He flushed and said defensively, “I’m not signing
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up for security. I’m signing up to help train Iraqis to
become good police officers. And in case you haven’t
noticed, you and I are already hired mercenaries if that
means keeping the peace and putting bad guys out of
business.”
“We don’t have a license to kill over here,” she
snapped. “And the bad guys aren’t lying in wait to am-
bush us for no reason. I can’t believe you’re going to
do this.”
“Believe it,” he said. “I’m just lucky I can go as a
hired hand. I can quit and come home. Soldiers can’t
and they get paid squat.”
